head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs design-extract
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars, 9,043 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped yesterday. design-extract has 4,466 stars, 385 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 1,843% (86,783 vs 4,466 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; design-extract is written in HTML under MIT. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, design-extract 9%. design-extract was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Crawl4AI | design-extract | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 385 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Crawl4AI if
- You weight community size — 87K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick design-extract if
- You want the design-extract feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and design-extract fits your workflow better
About Crawl4AI
🚀🤖 Crawl4AI: Open source LLM Friendly Web Crawler & Scraper. 🚀 Crawl4AI Cloud API — Closed Beta (Launching Soon) Reliable, large scale web extraction, now built to be drastically more cost effective than any of the existing solutions. 👉 Apply here for early access We’ll be onboarding in phases and working closely with early users. Limited slots. Crawl4AI turns the web into clean, LLM ready Markdown for RAG, agents, and data pipelines. Fast, controllable, battle tested by a 50k+ star community. ✨ Check out latest update v0.9.3 ✨ New in v0.9.3 : Security release. Closes five coordinated disclosure advisories…
read the full Crawl4AI overview →
About design-extract
Built by Manav Arya Singh ( @Manavarya09 ) Sponsors Atlas Cloud — powers OpenAI compatible smart classification. For AI coding workflows, try the Atlas Cloud coding plan . Bloome — deploys your AI clone to handle every audience conversation, running in the cloud, 24/7. Try designlang on Bloome . designlang points a headless browser at any URL and reads the design system off the live DOM. One command emits 17+ files — DTCG tokens, Tailwind config, shadcn theme, Figma variables, motion tokens, typed component anatomy, brand voice, page intent labels, and a paste ready prompt pack for v0 / Lovable / Cursor / Claude…
read the full design-extract overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or design-extract more popular?
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars and design-extract has 4,466. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and design-extract free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and design-extract under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and design-extract?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and design-extract in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Crawl4AI or design-extract?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (86,783 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose design-extract if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.